Ridiculous wealth is ridiculous!
Rich people shit and die; they’re just less likely to die in shit.
Now if that hasn’t been said before it should have been and if it has – please accept apologies for not crediting you whoever you are.
(Yes – it’s back to the usual after last week’s lovely dragony blaunch and thanks to everyone who attended).
It’s a horrible phrase – the one crammed into the fast talky bit on the end of breathy advertisements trying to persuade you you’re the last person on the planet to get a new car / sofa / kitchen / boob job, - ‘subject to status’. In other words - we’ll treat you differently if you’re skint. We KNOW!
If your mental pores are clogged up with the poisonous deceit that acquisition of wealth is intrinsically desirable, if you’ve been force-fed t like some stupid goose, the nonsense that society needs extremely wealthy individuals because prosperity trickles down or we need more of everything to prevent obscene numbers of the world’s population starving, until you intellectual liver is fit for spreading on toast - it’s ok – here are a few cerebral exercises to help.
Remember that kid at school - you know the one – the kid who no one wanted to play with because he would slink off to a corner to eat his sweets. He would sneak them up to his mouth and try and chew and swallow them without anyone noticing, not really enjoying them himself but making sure no one else got any. Well – grown up – he’s that knacker with his unspendable affluence in an offshore account avoiding tax.
Try this one – think of that person dead (no – stay with me – it’s actually a handy thing to think about occasionally). How many people around look gloomy? How many people are smiling maybe remembering the cool things about him? How many people are crying? And how many people are smirking or looking at their watches wondering how long till they can leave and cross their fake grief off their ‘to do’ list? I’m sure there’ll be an equation soon showing an increased percentage in this last category directly proportional to the size of the deceased’s horded assets.
This is not about people who got rich as a sideline to the main drive of their life. Maybe they started a business or excelled in their chosen field and the pay just got bigger. Though even here – maybe some thought needs to be given to what to do with that by-product so it doesn’t take over the person. If acting or singing or writing or setting up a design company or inventing stuff was your thing – is running three houses going to allow you to live three lives? Will owning 8 cars allow 8 journeys to be taken at the same time? No – this is about wealth for the sake of it, just having, just acquiring and then sitting on the pile making sure no one else gets any. It could be a pile the person got themselves or one bequeathed by ancestors as a result of historic success in getting more land/slaves/oil/coal/bits of jewellery than anyone else. We all know piles are uncomfortable and you shouldn’t sit on them.
Beware of the lies surrounding wealth. Apparently ever bigger companies need to be given rights to own the means of sustenance (surely the very air we breathe soon) they will protect crops so that more can be grown and the poor can eat. BUT never in the history of mankind have we had such sophisticated methods of producing and shipping food. Never in the history of mankind have we been able to extract such huge quantities of calories from controlled processing. Never in the history of the world have so many people been starving and so many people dying of the effects of excess. It’s the equation that’s wrong.
There is a good reason why greed is one of the seven deadly sins. It’s bad for the haves as well as the have-nots.
But the privileged few pay the deafening piper who bangs out the tune of selective envy. Never mind the guy who draws excessive remuneration from sitting on the boards of international companies but contributes little if anything in taxes – look at the guy next door living on benefits. In other words – look away from the fat hogs gorging on the ever creaking table of opulence and overabundance – concentrate on the guy next to you who may have a slightly bigger crumb than the one you scrapped up from under the table. And you only have to listen to even the most highly regarded pedlars of news to know that we are all falling for it.
It is mad, the emperor is not wearing any clothes, we are plugged into the matrix, we are going to hell in a handcart – it’s just that some are getting a comfy ride and some are doing the hauling.
Ok try this one. Jimmy Carr - never really my cuppa in terms of comedy but boy do I think of him as a figure of fun now – and forever. And yet in another way it’s very unfunny. Isn’t it?
Ok try this one. How can two bits of material sewn together (common name – a handbag) ever be worth more than say £40 – let alone £4K+? Ditto a dress / pair of shoes. There are so many naked emperors blobbing about (and in this weather) it’s a wonder FEG (frozen emperor genitals) isn’t the new top cause of preventable death in the 21st century.
Its common knowledge that if the (so called) developed world stopped buying shit we don’t need, the global economy would collapse. It is also well known that many of the countries where the largest numbers of people regularly die of starvation grow cash crops for the west instead of food for themselves. Why aren’t we all running down the street gaga? I know - there are so many naked emperors everywhere we’re scared of bumping into them and their horrible blue shrivelled...
Next week (possibly
Wile-e-coyote – the social and philosophical importance of – but only if I have time to do the research!